


we can live our misbehavior

by portions_forfox



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-16
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-11-10 02:51:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portions_forfox/pseuds/portions_forfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>lindsay doesn't call. (why does it bother you, michael dear.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	we can live our misbehavior

**Author's Note:**

> Michael/Lindsay friendship-with-UST-undertones. So yeah.

She doesn't call, and the worst part isn't even that, isn't even that she didn't call, no, the worst part is that you expected her to. You expected her to call.  
  
She doesn't call.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Your mother says, "I'm sorry, Michael," says, "This shouldn't have happened," and it's the first time she's apologized and probably the last, and of course it's not for something she's done, it's for this. For this—thing that shouldn't have happened.  
  
GOB says, "You were married?" and Buster says, "Hey, dead wife," because when he gets anxious about something it just kind of slips out.  
  
Your father tells you, "Michael," and then drinks a glass of scotch, and yeah, yeah that's Dad.  
  
Lindsay doesn't call.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When you were—when the two of you were kids, GOB would sometimes say to Lindsay, "Pig nose for a pig girl," because let's face it, he was never very creative with the older-brother-teasing-thing. But he would say it loudly, and consecutively, and Lindsay would come into your room and sit at the foot of your bed, pale white legs curled underneath her, and there was yellow sun on yellow hair and Lindsay filled the room with her sunny chatter, all wide eyes and flustered hands to make up for the silence,  _Can you believe Madonna's dating so-and-so? Ugh! I can't_ , and you listened, because you were Michael and that was why she came into  _your_  room and not—well, there wasn't really anyone else, was there. There were just the two of you.  
  
Lucille always says she and GOB have nothing in common but she is wrong, because by the time Lindsay is thirteen she's caught on,  _Here's a necklace for you Lindsay to draw the eye up from your tummy_ , and there Lindsay is in your room,  _Travis Knox says he'll sneak me in to see The Breakfast Club_ , and in the silences her lips curl into a thin, bleak line. And that's why there aren't any silences.  
  
The year you go away to college and Lindsay stays at home she gets skinny and nobody notices, and you don't talk about this anymore but there was a phone call from your mother,  _Your sister's being ridiculous_ , and a hospital visit that already seemed so far from you, like it wasn't your sister at all, like maybe it was someone you'd read about in the newspaper, because being away from the mess that is them is addictive, and you drink it in, you drink it up.  
  
So Lindsay got skinny and nobody noticed, and you don't talk about it anymore.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
GOB is saying,  _Stop hitting yourself_ , and Buster is curling up into a ball on the floor and Mother is yelling at Father and Father is drinking at Mother and Lindsay's sprawled out on the floor of your room, lights out except for blonde hair like a halo, and muffled voices out in the hall and a sigh between the walls.  
  
"Don't let me go crazy, Michael," Lindsay says. Like them, she means. Like them. "Okay?"  
  
"I won't," is your promise to her, and it's not until a long time later you realize you've broken it.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
You meet Tracey your sophomore year at college, and when it's finally time for her to meet your family you're already engaged (she wouldn't have agreed to marry you if she'd met them any earlier), and just before you ring the doorbell you find yourself warning, "They're all crazy, Trace, okay? Just ignore them, I beg of you," and she laughs and her eyes crinkle and her brown hair is auburn in this sun of theirs, and you laugh too, because you can.  
  
You hear someone inside rushing to the door and out of your mouth you hear the words, "Oh, and the only one who really matters is Lindsay, my sis—" and then Buster opens the door ( _Hey, brother's fiancé_ ), and you have to step inside.  
  
Everyone is awful, of course, but Lindsay is everything Lindsay is capable of being, charming and friendly and lovely and  _sane_ , so utterly, anomalously sane, and as you and Tracey leave the house she puffs out her cheeks and lets out a whistle— _Whew_ —and breathes,  _Thank God for Lindsay_ , and you say yeah, yeah.  
  
And it's Tracey who says it, who's always saying it, as the years slip by one by one,  _You should call Lindsay_.  
  
 _I can't, she's crazy_ , you answer once, and this—this is the first time you've ever hated yourself.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Tracey dies, and Lindsay doesn't call you, but you call her. For Tracey.  
  
"She was always saying, You should call Lindsay, You should call Lindsay," you tell the message machine. It's Tobias' voice on the recorded greeting, and in that moment you first hear him, his tinny little whine,  _You've reached Tobias Fünke_...  _oh, and Lindsay_ , you kind of hate him. You hang up the phone and you reach into the cupboards for the scotch, and before you call again you drink a little and you hate Tobias a little, and for the first of too many moments it occurs to you then,  _I'm becoming my father_ , because on her wedding night George had leaned an elbow on the kitchen counter, scotch on his breath, head in his hands,  _He's taken away my little girl_ , and now look at you. The same.  
  
 _You've reached Tobias Fünke... oh, and Lindsay_ , the second time, and now you're well into your message. "She was always saying, You should call Lindsay, You should call Lindsay... " And you pause to gulp down some scotch. The phone, you notice, is sticky with sweat against your ear, and the light in your kitchen is flickering and damp yellow. Tracey kept saying to fix it. "She liked you, you know," you're telling a machine. Maybe you're drunk. "Even though you only met a couple times. She saw what you could really be, Linds, she saw... you. God," you laugh, wheezy, "I'm starting to sound like a Lifetime movie, okay... " You lift your elbow off the kitchen counter, glance into the living room at George Michael, who's watching Nickelodeon in silence with his lips curled into a thin, bleak line. "But anyway, what I'm trying to say is, she—Tracey—she worried about you. I worried—worry about you. You don't... "  _Don't let me go crazy, Michael._  "You don't know what you deserve. How much... you deserve."  _I won't._  "So, um, if you're ever in town and you wanna give me a call, you know... George Michael and Maeby are around the same age, so, uh... so they can have a play date, maybe... "  _Michael, honey, would you please get that light fixed? It's starting to give me a headache._  "Anyway, um. Call me."  
  
He hangs up, and Lindsay doesn't call.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Lindsay's been in town for a month?"  
  
Lindsay's been in town for a month.  
  
She hasn't called.  
  
"Who cares?" says your mother. "GOB lives in town and he never calls. Buster's always here and I don't hear you complaining about him not reaching out to you, and you know your father and I don't care much for your visits. So why," she says, a glass of red wine, a smirk, "why does it bother you, Michael dear?"  
  
 _Oh, and the only one who really matters is Lindsay, my sis—_


End file.
